Meghan은 간다, Meghan ya no esta aqui

La vida

I don't pay much attention to my watch these days. There are certain things that happen at appointed times: devotions at 7am, breakfast at 7:30, lunch at 12:30, church at 5 or 6, but for most of the morning and most of the afternoon, time doesn't matter. It is a welcome sigh of relief after a lot of rushing around at home. Be at this school at this time, and on the other side of the city in an hour. Scurrying from a sub job to school, or a sub job to a nanny job, and carrying extra clothes and food in my car and in my bags. Leaving the house at 7am and getting home at 10pm or later on busy days. Even at subbing it's having to be getting the students ready for lunch at 11:13am or making sure the room is cleaned up by 2:22pm. Life is slower here, not because it's Mexico, because surely the students and workers and businesses here operate on a certain time schedule, but because our work gets done when it gets done. No need for a rush. Not having to be at a certain place by a certain time. Watches are useful, but they do not run our lives.

I went out to a work site with Dad yesterday morning and this morning. This actually isn't usual for me, because I'm not needed, but Dad needed some extra hands, especially yesterday. I spent a couple of hours shoveling gravel into the cement mixer and woke up incredibly sore this morning. Yesterday the sun didn't come out all morning, and I was fine, but this morning I didn't put on sunscreen and I'm feeling the effects right about now.

We were laying the foundation and floor for a house being built not far up in the hills, but far enough that it felt like a little drive. This is actually only about a mile from the freeway, and as all roads off the freeway here are dirt and rocks, it was bumpy and feeling a little treacherous.

So we head up off the highway, into the neighborhood:
And we pass by a school that was built to provide schooling for Oaxacan children (complete with ocean view):
And after we've reached the top of a small hill, we go back down into a little tiny valley in front of the big hill:
And we reach the lot where we're building the house. In the above picture, you can see the existing house which is mostly made of plywood and tarps and other various building materials.

Yesterday arrived a group of five guys from California, so they helped out this morning, pouring the floor for this house, and we got it done really quickly.

And all I can think of is my Educational Psychology class and how our minds categorize information. I thought about how my mind has no categorized everything I've learned over the past couple of days: where this house is, who lives here, how the cement mixing process goes, the formula (2 1/2 buckets of water + one bag cement + shovels of gravel until it looks good). How Colores, our construction man, moves and shapes the floor, how he moves the 2x4 over the entire floor to smooth it out, and how he uses a stamper to push the rocks to the bottom and bring the water to the top. And the finishing touch of the smoother.

Among other things, I tried to make a new dish. My friend Nina made it for a church potluck. Our theme was international food, and she brought an Indian dish called Chicken Saag. I think this was the most intensive cooking experience I've ever had. Mom helped with the whole thing, and it was pretty delicious.

Our "compound" is right next to a small baseball stadium and Sunday we were "blessed" with a concert that started at 9pm and went until 2:30am. Needless to say we were tired on Monday. I have some video that I might try to post later.

posted by Meghan @ 9:19 PM